R.I. Has Made $700k Off Kingdoms of Amalur

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Rhode Island has only made $700,000 off Kingdom of Amalur? Yikes, talk about a terrible return on investment. ;)

Kingdoms of Amalur has earned Rhode Island about $713,000, says a lawyer for the state. The only game released by the bankrupt 38 Studios, the RPG is now owned by the state that fronted $75 million in loans meant to lure the company to move from neighboring Massachusetts.
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Pretty sad, although it really wasn't a bad game at all. It's too bad people will always associate it with this debacle.
 
And Rhode Island has spent millions on lawsuits and such in regards to 38 Studios to try to save face.
 
I thought the game was pretty good. It eventually got redundant though.
 
So they did have people employed in RI and separately got this profit?

Giving a company enough tax breaks to reduce their actual payments by $713,000 (for jobs, etc.) isn't rare.
 
Who was the publisher? RI needs to look there for some money, imo.
 
Gives new meaning to the term "Game of the Year Edition".
 
It *was* a fun game. Too bad things petered out on it.
 
I thought the game was generic and wildly repetitive.
Perhaps I just can't take being tasked to collect batwings anymore. I ground my teeth and did a town's worth of the tedium. Then the next was the same. And the next. More batwings. Well, they might be called shards or something. But really, still batwings.

Then, by about the fourth town when I saw a see of villagers with ! above their heads - I wept softly to myself. Please, find your own batwings. PLEASE. I'm trying to stop, er, what was I doing before I started collecting batwings again? I honestly don't remember what the Big Bad Guy was...

I suppose I'm just old and jaded and have played too many games. This just seemed like a derivative of any of them, without any real flair or character of its own.
 
PhaseNoise said:
I thought the game was generic and wildly repetitive.
Perhaps I just can't take being tasked to collect batwings anymore. I ground my teeth and did a town's worth of the tedium. Then the next was the same. And the next. More batwings. Well, they might be called shards or something. But really, still batwings.

Then, by about the fourth town when I saw a see of villagers with ! above their heads - I wept softly to myself. Please, find your own batwings. PLEASE. I'm trying to stop, er, what was I doing before I started collecting batwings again? I honestly don't remember what the Big Bad Guy was...

I suppose I'm just old and jaded and have played too many games. This just seemed like a derivative of any of them, without any real flair or character of its own.
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Combination of the two perhaps. Being overly repetitive can get old, but at the same time if you've been playing games with "fetch 10 of these things" for the past 20 years...it gets tiring.

I have to ask though(haven't played this specific game), do the bats at least drop the wings when you kill them? Too many games have quests to gather 15 wolf kidneys or whatever, and you end up having to kill 50 wolves to get them since apparently 2/3 of the wolf population in sherwood forest has had kidney failure and uses dialysis.
 
XacTactX said:
Guys, am I thinking of the right game?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdoms_of_Amalur:_Reckoning#Sales

It says here that the game has sold at least 1.2 million copies and that's after 90 days. How can a game with 1.2 million sales only make $713,000? Seems a bit low don't you think.
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Most probably went to the publisher. The game is published by EA. Normally when you do a developer/publisher deal the publisher puts up the money for the game to be made, which means they also get to keep most of the profits. They took the financial risk, they keep the lion's share of the money.

What I've never figured out is why it needed a publisher, since RI put up so much money. It should have been self published. My only guess is that they squandered it all and needed to get more.

Also initially any residuals were going to 38 Studios, while they were still open. Only after they shut down did RI get the game.
 
More proof that people who play sports "professionally" have no idea what they're doing if it doesn't somehow involve a bunch of men all playing an exciting game of grab the ball.
 
blame the people that convinced RI that a 75M loan to a start up game studio was a good investment
 
PhaseNoise said:
I thought the game was generic and wildly repetitive.
Perhaps I just can't take being tasked to collect batwings anymore. I ground my teeth and did a town's worth of the tedium. Then the next was the same. And the next. More batwings. Well, they might be called shards or something. But really, still batwings.

Then, by about the fourth town when I saw a see of villagers with ! above their heads - I wept softly to myself. Please, find your own batwings. PLEASE. I'm trying to stop, er, what was I doing before I started collecting batwings again? I honestly don't remember what the Big Bad Guy was...

I suppose I'm just old and jaded and have played too many games. This just seemed like a derivative of any of them, without any real flair or character of its own.
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It was very WoW-like, although I think the story was handled much better than Warcraft's has lately. I honestly remember less of the quests and more of the repetitive dungeons. It was kind of like the inverse of Skyrim, with weak/repetitive side quests (aside from a couple that really stand out) but really strong core quests/story.

The end boss was the giant awoken dragon that creates shades of you.

I believe the entire thing was actually designed to be a WoW-clone, because they wanted to turn the franchise into an MMO. It would be WoW familiarity, but with the combat of an action game. I think the combat was good if you played daggers but was weak for every other weapon and spec, because they were too powerful and there's too many built in mini-stuns and things.
 
Udgnim said:
blame the people that convinced RI that a 75M loan to a start up game studio was a good investment
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More like, blame the idiot who made the decision and was convinced. Stupid idea come and go all the time, it's the person who makes the decision who really should get the blame. They are the ones who's suppose to weed out the bad idea.

Not that I think the people who gave the idea are exactly people to praise.
 
pothb said:
More like, blame the idiot who made the decision and was convinced. Stupid idea come and go all the time, it's the person who makes the decision who really should get the blame. They are the ones who's suppose to weed out the bad idea.

Not that I think the people who gave the idea are exactly people to praise.
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there were only a very small collection of idiots who got to make this decision. They have all been fired and/or investigated.

It was a bad deal for us (RI) to start, them failing made it worse.

Don't get me started....because I am so pissed at this you have no idea.
 
At the fact that you have no control over a stupid ass decision made by someone else using your money? Trust me, I feel the pain, though clearly, it's worst for you, and it's written in big letters, while my states have it in microscopic ones, and (im guessing) less stupid (but unsure).
 
The problem I have is that this deal was made by the former governor and a few of his cronies at the RI Economic Development Corp, (RIEDC). It was literally forced through without so much as a may I please..? It was made to a celebrity with no history of running a business, to a company that had no product history. The company was micromanaged by said celebrity who had no clue how to make a game (but he played games wooo!) never mind run a company. Positions of importance were given out to friends and family. MANY intelligent investors took one look at the company, the owner, and the mismanagement and ran away. The state they were in said HA take them!! Harvard school of business did a report on them BEFORE RI was forced to invest and said this is a high risk company.

Like I said....don't get me started (tool late).

Now try getting any sort of loan or financial assistance from the EDC and you get laughed at. 75 million could have gone a VERY long way to helping MANY small businesses in RI who no doubt would have paid the money back.

sorry for being so ranty.
 
Celebrites know everything! Comedians tell us what we should think about politics and business and movie stars tell us which toothpaste and pain relief creams to use. It makes sense that some celebrity should also tell us what video games we should play.
 
Is this the amount of profit made back, or just all the money they've recovered from that fiasco?

Either way, seems like a tiny amount.
 
Sycraft said:
Most probably went to the publisher. The game is published by EA. Normally when you do a developer/publisher deal the publisher puts up the money for the game to be made, which means they also get to keep most of the profits. They took the financial risk, they keep the lion's share of the money.

What I've never figured out is why it needed a publisher, since RI put up so much money. It should have been self published. My only guess is that they squandered it all and needed to get more.

Also initially any residuals were going to 38 Studios, while they were still open. Only after they shut down did RI get the game.
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Thank you for the response, this makes sense, very informative.
 
The catch is this the money that was made after the game was turned over to RI. All the money 38 got before that they spent on the MMO before RI asked if they were ever going to meet their milestones.

I had a blast playing Amalur, but you back tracked every where, you did so many things that no one finds fun, that with the group they had working on it should have never been in there.

I have to think those guys have been making games too long they are not willing to look at what is fun and focus on that.

SWTOR gives you a lot of go kill x number of bad guys but they make it interesting in variety of bad guy, what the text says, some time you go listen to that one NPC because he is funny.

I wanted to finish Amalur several times, I just never was willing to slug through the rest of the way. Loved the armor and graphics though.
 
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